POE 



«•"• HANNS 
t8S HEINZ 



EWERS 




Glass. 



Book 

Copyright N?_ 



COK3RIGHT DEPOSDi 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

BY 
HANNS HEINZ EWERS 




Translated from the German by 

ADELE LEWISOHN 



NEW YORK 

B. W. HUEBSCH 

MCMXVII 



COPYRIGHT, 1016, BY 
B. W. HUEBSCH 



4 



*y 






PRINTED IN' THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

-Ho I . 



TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 

One of the reasons for Hanns Heinz Ewers' in- 
fluence upon German verse and prose is his wonder- 
ful sense of the value of words, of their colors and 
sounds, which he shares with the masters of all 
times. His instinct leads him toward the strange, 
the unexpected. The actions in his books take 
place in the human soul — that land of dreams 
which unites our soul to the world-soul. 

The conception of the "Alraune" or "Man- 
dragora," his most famous book, antedates Pytha- 
goras. It is a fable of the plant that shrieks 
when plucked. Ewers combines this story with 
the science of our times and creates a tale of a 
strange passion, with no intent to intoxicate but 
rather to explain. This book has affected not 
only the literature of Germany, but the literature 
of France, where Ewers lived for years and where 
he collaborated with Marc Henry, a French 
modernist, in bringing out some French fairy tales, 
"Le Joli Tambour" and the dramatic poem, "Les 
Yeux Morts," now set to music by d' Albert. 



INTRODUCTION 

I cannot quote from any of his poems for they 
are as yet untranslated. In the scries called "The 
Soul of Flowers, 55 in a manner so simple as to be 
almost ingenuous, he has declared in exquisite lan- 
guage that if the rose is the flower of love in all the 
universe it is because this thought caused it to 
become what it is. 

His "Sorcerer's Apprentice, or, the Devil 
Hunters 5 ' is a powerful performance. A commun- 
ity of peasants in an Italian mountain village re- 
peat among themselves the whole of the passion 
of Christ until the final crucifixion. A simple 
peasant girl is hypnotized into believing herself 
a savior and taking the sins of the world upon her 
shoulders. Of this work we can truly say that 
nothing that is human is alien to it. 

Ewers was born at Dusseldorf in 1871. His 
father was a painter of no mean ability. His 
mother is a woman of great force of character 
who translated several English books into German 
and who has always deeply influenced her son. 
Ewers has lived in almost all the countries of the 
world. His "India and I 55 is a record of his life 
in India and that land herself is presented to us. 
Her holy temples, her brown-faced dancers with 
their swaying limbs and open arms, her incense, 
her idols and her fakirs. All these are given new 

vi 



INTRODUCTION 

expression as seen through the doubting yet loving 
and always personal eyes of Hanns Heinz Ewers. 

His conclusion is that the occult is so deeply 
rooted in our spiritual natures that the mind is 
our actual body, and the imagination our real 
mind — that as a phenomenon of nature there 
exists nothing more holy or more spiritual than 
the carnal. 

At a time when Poe was comparatively little 
understood Ewers was his most sympathetic Ger- 
man interpreter. He is able to mirror the soul 
of Poe because they are intellectual kinsmen. 
Both are at home in "the misty mid-region of 
Weir," both dwell "out of Space, out of Time." 
Both have explored the realm of Horror. In fact, 
Ewers has gone beyond Poe because to him was 
revealed the mystery of sex; to Poe sex always 
was a sealed book. However, his attitude toward 
Poe, as shown in this little essay, is almost that of 
a worshipper. 



Adele Lewisohn. 



New York 
December, 1916. 



vu 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 



IN THE ALHAMBRA 

LIGHTLY my feet tread over the 
grey stairs of the old path that I 
had so often followed to the Alham- 
bra's sacred groves. The Gate of the 
Pomegranates, behind which I flee to es- 
cape from time, opens wide to my ardent de- 
sires so gently does one wander into the 
land of dreams, — where the elm trees mur- 
mur, where the fountains babble, where from 
out of the laurel bushes hundreds of night- 
ingales sing, there I can best think of my 
poet. 

* * * 

One ought not to do it. Really not. 

One ought not read any mere book about 
the artist one loves. One is sure to be dis- 
appointed — how can the dominie speak of 
God? One must go about it carefully, very, 
very carefully. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

It ought to be done in this way: 

You love Firdusi — Goethe wrote about 
him. You do not know Goethe? Very 
well. First read everything Goethe ever 
wrote before you read what he has to say 
about the Persian poet, and then onlj r , after 
you absolutely understand the man who 
writes about j^our favorite, only then decide 
whether you will read what he has to say 
about him — In this way you will not be dis- 
appointed. 

Never read what Tom and Dick write 
about the artist you love; even if Tom and 
Dick happen to be stars of the first magni- 
tude, and if the poet you love is altogether 
a tiny speck of nebula — do not read them! 
Do not read them before you know Tom 
and Dick absolutely; until you know that 
they have a right to sit in judgment on your 
artist. 

I did not do it in that way. I have some 
drops of a heavy fluid in my blood from 
some source or another, unbearable German 
thoroughness. From a sort of sense of 
duty, I thought, before writing of the poet 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

you love, read what others before you have 
written about him — I thought — perhaps — 

Thereupon I read much about Edgar Al- 
lan Poe, and I am so disappointed — so very 
much disappointed. There was only one 
whose mind could comprehend him. There 
was only Charles Baudelaire. 

Baudelaire, who created art out of hash- 
ish. How could he do otherwise than com- 
prehend Poe, he who moulded works of im- 
perishable beauty out of alcohol and laud- 
anum! 

* # # 

Now I must forget all that the others 
said. I must forget the dreadful Griswold, 
whose ^jvhole biography of Poe is nothing 
else than an outburst of venom. "He 
drank, he drank, phew, he drank!" And 
the still more horrible Ingram. I must for- 
get this fool, who saved my Poet's honor by 
stammering, "He did not drink, really, he 
did not drink at all." 

Quickly before I forget them, I must 
mark down the dates which they have given 
me: 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Edgar * Allan Poe — born on January 19, 
1809 , in Boston. Irish family, long ances- 
try, Norman, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and 
Italian blood. In 1816 he went to England 
with his foster-parents. A few years at 
boarding school in Stoke-Newington — 1822 
returned to America, 1826 studied at Rich- 
mond, then in Charlottesville. 1827 went 
on a trip to Europe with unknown adven- 
tures: 1830 Cadet at West Point— 1834 edi- 
tor of the Southern Literary Messenger in 
Richmond. 1836 married his cousin, Vir- 
ginia Clemm. He wrote — He lived al- 
ternately in New York, Philadelphia, Rich- 
mond and Fordhctm. Things went very 
badly with him. "He drank," says Gris- 
wold. "He did not drink," says Ingram. 
He died October 7th in the hospital for the 
poor at Baltimore, forty years of age. 

So, these are the most insignificant dates. 
Now I can forget them also. 

# # # 

Yet how difficult it is. Very slowly I 
walk through the avenue of the elms up to 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

the King's palace. To the left I turn in 
and stride through the mighty Tower Gate 
of Justice. I am delighted with the hand * 
lifted above me to ward off the spell of the 
evil eye. I think my priests will remain 
outside. Now, I have reached the top — = 
alone in these familiar rooms. 

I know very well where I wish to go. 
Quickly through the courtyard of the myr- 
tles, through the Hall of the Mocarabians 
into the courtyard of the Twelve Lions, — - 
to the left, through the Hall of the Two 
Sisters, and through that of the ajimezes t 
I go. Now I arrive, — in the balcony of 
Lindaraxa's Tower, where Boabdil's mother 
Ayxa lived. I sit on the windowsill, look- 
ing out upon the old cypress trees. 

How difficult it is to forget. There are 
my priests walking in the garden. Two 

* A gigantic hand graven on the arch of this gate, whose 
five fingers designate the principal commandments of the 
creed of Islam, and which, according to a legend, wards on° 
evil. 

+ "Ajimezes" is a Spanish term for small arched windows 
supported by central pillars; he probably refers to one of 
the smaller courts famous for the symmetry of these win- 
dows. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

English hypocrites, round hats, short pipes, 
black coats, with Baedekers in their 
hands. 

"He drank," hisses one. 

"O, no, he really did not drink" pipes the 
other. 

I would like to knock their heads together. 
I would like to shout to them. "Away, you 
rats, — away. Here sits one who is dream- 
ing of the artist he loves ! He sang in your 
language — and you know nothing of 
him— 5 ' 

Presently they are gone, of course. I am 
alone again! 

# # # 

He drank — he did not drink. That is the 
way the Anglo-Saxons dispute about their 
poets. They permit Milton to starve; they 
steal his whole life's work from Shakespeare. 
They delve into Byron's and Shelley's fam- 
ily histories with crooked fingers ; they calum- 
niate Rossetti and Swinburne; lock Wilde 
into prison and point their finger at Charles 
Lamb and Poe — because they drank! 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

After all, I am happy that I am a Ger- 
man. Germany's great men were permitted 
to be immoral — that is, not quite exactly as 
moral as the good middle class and the 
priests. The German says: "Goethe was 
our great poet." He knows that he was not 
so very moral but he does not take that fact 
too much to heart. The Englishman says: 
—"Byron was immoral, therefore he cannot 
have been a great poet." Only in England 
could Kingsley — that offensive preacher of 
morality — have uttered that remark about 
Heine, which has become a familiar quota- 
tion — "Do not speak of him, — he was a 
wicked man." 

If, however, it is unalterable, if the na- 
tions on all sides acknowledge and love the 
"immoral" English poets, the Englishman 
is at last forced to speak — then he lies. He 
does not renounce his hypocrisy; he simply 
says: "Later investigation has proved that 
the man was not at all immoral, — he was 
highly moral, quite pure and innocent." In 
this fashion the English have "saved the 
honor" of Byron. It will not be long ere 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

they turn a Saul Wilde into a Paul. 
Thus in the ease of Poe, an Ingram followed 
a Griswold with the "Oh, no, he really did 
not drink." 

The English are now permitted to appre- 
ciate Edgar Allan Poe, since it is officially 
attested that he was a moral being. 

But we, who make not the slightest claim 
to middle class morality, — we love him, even 
if he drank. Yes, even more we love him 
because of his drink, because we know that 
just from this poison which destroyed his 
body pure blossoms shot forth, whose artis- 
tic worth is imperishable. 

How works of art are created is not the 
affair of the layman, — that is the affair of 
the artist alone — no one may venture a word 
or even pass judgment on a final sentence. 
Only the few whom he permits a glimpse 
into his mode of creating because they love 
him, may silently look on — only they can 
tell. 

Wilde tells the fairy tale of the marvel- 
ously beautiful rose which blossomed from 
the heart's blood of the dying nightingale. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

The student who plucked it looked and won- 
dered ; never before had he seen such a won- 
drous blood-red rose. But he knew not 
how it had originated. 

We marvel at the Odontoglossum grande, 
the most splendid of all orchids. Is it less 
beautiful because it feeds on insects which 
it slowly tortures to death in the most fear- 
ful manner? We rejoice at the splendid 
lilies in the Park of Cintra. We marvel, 
— we have never seen them so large and 
white. What does it matter that the crafty- 
gardener does not water them with natural 
water, but with guano, with selected artificial 
manure? 

The time will come when the highroads 
of our sober art, only scantily lighted by the 
melancholy lamps of alcohol, will be ridi- 
culed. A time for those to whom intoxica- 
tion and art are inseparable ideas, who, as 
a matter of fact will only recognize the dis- 
tinction in the art brought forth by intoxica- 
tion. Then only will one give to these path- 
finders the high places they deserve, to Hoff- 
mann, Baudelaire, Poe — the artists who 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

were the first to work understandingly with 
intoxicants. 

Let us be honest! Is there any artist 
who can entirely abstain from the use of in- 
toxicants? Do they not all take their little 
poisons: tea, tobacco, coffee, beer, or what- 
ever it may be? Must not the mind be 
"poisoned" in order to produce works of art? 
Because if the artist is not poisoned by means 
of his body, he is in other ways. 

For there are quite a number of other 
ways. 

Art and Nature are always opposed to 
one another. A man who lives a purely ab- 
stemious life, physically and mentally, — 
whose ancestors for many generations have 
also lived just as abstemiously, so that his 
blood is not, as it is with all of us, poisoned, 
can never become an artist, unless some 
divine power provides him with other sensa- 
tions, capable of awaking ecstasy. But 
those also act as a poison upon the spirit. 
Nature and Art are the deadliest enemies; 
where one reigns the other becomes impos- 
sible. 

10 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

What is the meaning of the word "artist" 
in its truest sense? A pioneer of culture in 
the newly discovered land of the uncon- 
scious. 

How few are worthy to be called artists 
under this lofty definition of that proud 
title! E. T. A. Hoffmann deserves it, and 
Jean Paul and Villiers and Baudelaire — 
and certainly also Edgar Allan Poe; this 
much even the Griswolds must concede to 
the artist who, in so many of his stories, en- 
tered that secret country of the soul, of which 
no one before him, and least of all the scien- 
tists, had the slightest presentiment. 

The eternal land of our longing lies 
dreamily before us in grey misty clouds, — ■ 
the vast land of the unknown. The beggar 
lies huddled in the warm sunshine, — the con- 
tented town folks hug their fire places. 

But there are people whose tormenting 
desires are so great that they must emerge 
from the realm which we know. JRobur et 
ces triplex must protect their breasts when 
they leave the sunny land of the known, 
when they steer through the grey murder- 

11 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

ous floods to Avalon. And many, many 
perish shamefully without having cast even 
a single glance behind the clouds. Only a 
few can complete the journey. They dis- 
cover a new land, — accept it in the name of 
a new culture; they have extended the bor- 
ders of consciousness a little further. 

The artists are these first explorers. 
After them come the hordes of expeditions 
of discoverers in order to survey and investi- 
gate the country — land registrars and rent 
collectors— men of science. 

Now it is certain that the so-called poisons, 
which we call narcotics, are as potent as 
other means to lead us beyond the threshold 
of the conscious. If one succeeds in getting 
a firm footing in this "other world," ex- 
changing the metaphysical for something 
positive, one creates a new work of art, and 
is, in the noblest sense, an artist. 

It may be necessary here to accentuate 
that quality of wisdom which insists, of 
course, that there can be no idea of creation 
in intoxication. Or, on the other hand, that 
no intoxicant in the world can develop in 

12 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

a man qualities which he does not possess. 

The Griswolds and the Ingrams could 
take any amount of wine, could smoke any 
amount of opium, eat any amount of hash- 
ish, nevertheless they would still be unable 
to create works of art. 

But the intoxication caused by narcotics 
is liable, under certain conditions, when ac- 
companied by other causes, to create a state 
of ecstasy later on, and in this state of ec- 
stasy every one produces the highest that 
his intelligence is capable of conceiving. 

Edgar Allan Poe drank. And, as with 
all of us, his body proportionately reacted 
unfavorably against the poison of the al- 
cohol, deadened as it was by the drink-habits 
of generations of ancestors; so he drank 
heavily. He got drunk. But he got drunk 
purposely, he did it in order to get the 
drunkard's understanding, from which he 
later on, perhaps years later, could create 
new art values. Such intoxication is no de- 
light, it is an unbearable torture ; consciously 
desired only by him on whose brow the liv- 
ing mark of art is branded. 

18 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Is there a more shameful lie than' that re- 
mark of the banal: "Artistic creation is not 
work — it is a pleasure?" He who says this 
and the great public which thoughtlessly re- 
peat it, have never felt the breath of ecstasy, 
which is the only condition demanded by 
art. And this ecstasy is always a torture, 
even when — in rare cases — the cause which 
produced it, was one of rapture. 

They say that it is with joy that the 
mother cat brings forth her young — but the 
offspring are only poor blind little kittens. 
So may the weekly contributor to the 
Gotham Gazette, so may the versifier of a 
"Berlin by Night" sheet, put his lines on 
paper with joy — a work of art is never born 
without pain. 

# * # 

I wandered forth again — through the ma- 
jestic palace of the fifth Roman Emperor 
of Germany, who bore the name of Karl, 
right through the mighty portico, up through 
the long avenue of white blooming acacias, 
through the meadows blooming with many 

14 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

thousand blue irises. The Tower of the 
Princesses I had unlocked for me, where one 
time the Sultan's daughters Zayda, Zorayda, 
and Zorahayda at the window secretly over- 
heard the songs of the captured Christian 
knights. 

I gaze at the valley beyond the hill from 
which Boabdil at parting sent his last sigh 
to lost Granada. I glance at the garden of 
the Generalife. I can clearly see the many 
hundred year old cypresses, under whose 
shadow the last Moorish king's wife, Hamet, 
came to a tryst with the handsomest of the 
Abencerrages, which was to prove so fatal. 

Here each stone relates a legend, that is 
sadly fading away. 

Deep below in the valley lies the road 
which leads up to the City of the Dead. A 
pair of black goats graze on the green slopes. 
Back below the Tower of the Prisoners, sits 
a tattered toll-taker in front of his dirty 
cave. Long-eared rabbits graze about him, 
— seven roosters, already robbed of crest 
and tail feathers, for the impending battle, 
peck about the ground or fly at each other, 

15 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

and far in the East the snow of the wild 
Sierra Nevada glows purplish red. 

A troop of ragged lads travel through the 
Valley- — Two are carrying a little child's 
coffin on their shoulders — open according to 
the Spanish custom — another shoulders the 
cover. The coffin is very simple, three yel- 
low boards and two smaller ones. But 
within lie flowers, many flowers, red, yel- 
low — and white and blue flowers— from 
under which the waxen pale little face 
framed in black hair looks forth. No priest, 
no relatives, not even father nor mother are 
in the procession— six tattered lads. — 

But among so many gay flowers the dead 
child reposes in such fresh blossoming fra- 
grance. How good that they did not close 
her eyes ! Now she looks forth, interestedly 
from out of the variegated flowers — up to the 
old Moorish King's Palace— peers out of 
the colored splendor, the little dead girl so 
satisfied and happy, as she certainly never 
was in life. 

Edgar Allan Poe should have sat here. 

How he would have dreamed; how the gay 

* ' ' — " . •■ — ■ — ' - ' * * — * — •- — ■ ■ ■ ■ -"' 

16 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

legends would have flown about his brow on 
light wings! And he would have built a 
new Alhambra, in words of bronze, which 
would have outlasted the mighty towers of 
the Nasserites by many centuries. 

Here then other means perhaps would 
have created for him a state of ecstasy. He 
would probably not have drunk. But he 
was there in New England, his poor poet's 
soul penned in between realist prose writers, 
while at the same time Washington Irving, 
that model of English conventionality, was 
allowed to dream under the magic spell of 
Alhambra moonshine! And his "Tales of 
the Alhambra" became world renowned! 

Day after day I see strangers enter the 
sacred places, in their hands Baedekers; in 
their coat pockets copies of Irving's book. 
Just as they read the "Last Days of Pom- 
peii" in the House of Vettii or that of 
Dionysos! Did the few beauties contained 
in these books, which undeniably exist, ema- 
nate from Lord Lytton or Irving's mind? 
O, no, a breath from the Roman City of the 
Dead, of the Moorish fairy palace poured 

17 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

through their souls even though they were 
not poets, even though they were only little 
middle class scribblers. Neither Bulwer 
nor Irving created these beauties, but Pom- 
peii and the Alhambra in spite of them. 
# # # 

Poe's glowing longing knew nothing of 
all this. To emerge from his own self, to 
awaken within him an ecstasy which could 
transport him from all the familiar surround- 
ings which shut him in, there remained for 
him but one medium. Aside from very un- 
important happenings, little calculated to 
induce ecstasy, this most unfortunate of 
poets once only received from the outer 
world the Muse's Kiss ; through his beautiful 
beloved wife, Virginia Clemm. May the 
Moralist call this intoxication holy, god- 
like, may he call the Poet's other ecstasy, 
which resulted from the use of alcohol, then 
from opium, as unholy and fiendish; that is 
not of interest to us. For the artistic values 
which are brought forth by these are no less 
splendid. 

The godly ecstasy, however, was hardly 

18 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

less torturing for the inspired one than the 
infernal one. A Hell was to him what 
Paradise is to others, — a well beloved, a 
blessed Hell, but the flames of which never- 
theless scorched. For Virginia, — to whose 
dying eyes we are indebted for Morella, and 
Ligeia, Berenice and Lenore, — was doomed 
before she had given her hand to the Poet. 
He knew that she had consumption, that the 
glowing red of her cheeks lied, knew that 
from the depth of her liquid shimmering 
eyes the inexorable sickness grinned forth. 
When at night he stroked, the beloved locks 
he knew: "So many days yet she will live," 
and the next morning again "Another day 
less." It was a dying woman who kissed 
his lips, a dying woman, whose lovely head 
rested next to his at night. When he awoke 
disturbed by the coughing and rattling in 
her panting lungs — the white linen seemed 
to him a shroud, the cold drops on her brow, 
the sweat of death, a lingering death, lasting 
for years, a visible slow fading of the be- 
loved — this was the only "happiness" of this 
most unhappy of all poets. 

19 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Yes, this beautiful doomed wife, called 
forth emotions, — but they were emotions of 
fear, of silent repressed pain — of despair in 
a laughing disguise; a Paradise of Torture. 
Read the most beautiful tales Virginia 
sowed in his soul; you will feel a breath of 
the unspeakable torture in which they were 
born. 

Before the last threads of life were torn 
asunder, and the silent woman lowered into 
the grave, Edgar Allan Poe wrote his mas- 
terpiece "The Raven"; and the state of ec- 
stasy which brought forth this poem, which 
has no equal in the whole literature of the 
world, (I would like to shout this fact into 
the faces of the English hypocrites), was 
caused by the despair of his bleeding heart 
for this dying one, as well as by the com- 
mon, low intoxication of the wine cup. 

Each alienist who has specialized in the 
effects of intoxication, will readily recognize 
those parts of "The Raven" which sprang 
from delirium with absolute certainty. It is 
quite simple for the psychologist to trace 
the other rapture which the artist owes to 

20 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Virginia, his "lost Lenore." And here let 
us compare the sincere, marvelously clear 
essay which Poe wrote about the creation of 
this poem. Each stanza, each line, each 
single sound of words, he motivates in start- 
lingly simple logic; it is almost as though he 
w r anted to demonstrate a geometrical prob- 
lem. It may be true that the main sub- 
ject, the ecstasy, and its origin in holy and 
— O, such very unholy, intoxication, — is not 
mentioned by any word. — This essay was 
written for the New England readers of 
magazines, — how could they have under- 
stood a poet who spoke of ecstasy? The 
workmanship — the purely technical part, 
that which signifies the art, that which is 
supported by knowledge — that was never 
demonstrated by any Poet as clearly and 
convincingly as in this essay. A veritable 
text book of poetry, of one master piece. — 
Certainly as a guide the Philistine cannot 
use it; for the artist, however, it is the most 
important book of instruction existing. He 
may learn from it that godlike intoxication 
alone does not create an absolute work of 

21 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

art, that the common work, the despised 
technique, the reflection and polishing, the 
weighing and filing, are quite as indispens- 
able for its perfection. 

Not the mighty mind alone of the Arabian 
architect created the glorious Alhambra. — 
Masons, mule-drivers, gardeners, and 
painters, — each brought his little part to 
bear. 

Edgar Allan Poe was the first poet who 
spoke with such candor of literary labor, of 
the craftsman's work alone. In this, and 
probably only in this, his attitude was that 
of the American. As such he stood, and 
what is more, at the threshold of modern 
thought, he ranks as the pioneer — a brilliant 
demonstration of the intrinsic value of this 
Artist, who speaks only of technique and 
with no word mentions intuition which the 
amateur always carries on his tongue. Per- 
haps if he had written for other readers in 
his magazine, he might have gone one step 
further, and have told them about the tech- 
nique of intoxication. 

22 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Never before him did any one so dismem- 
ber his own work of art, and dissect it to its 
last shred. The divine breath dictated by 
the Bible haunts the faith of the masses until 
our very day and the artists by the "grace of 
the Lord," were careful not to destroy this 
fable of inspiration. When the Holy Ghost 
touched them, they swooned, — composed, 
wrote poetry, — and gave birth to more or less 
immaculate children of spirit. That was 
so pretty, so comfortable, that certainly 
some of the great artists would gladly have 
believed in this secret consecration. "Drunk 
with godliness" was said of the Thracian 
poet, even were he as sober as Socrates. 
This thought, which in its Dionysic origin 
coincides with our modern view of intoxica- 
tion and ecstasy, according to the later point 
of view, received the Lord's anointment, 
and, like so many other clear thoughts, which 
it was able to obscure, was taken up in the 
Christian conception of life with great en- 
thusiasm. All the beautiful phrases of the 
Knights of Olympus, of the Kiss of the 

23 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Muses, of the divine ecstasy, of the divine 
predestination of artists — by which we, 
Heaven be praised, are no longer impressed! 
— have their origin in this. 

It required courage to dissipate these 
sparkling mists ; few, very few myths about 
world's literature can stand such a relentless 
decomposition. But because Poe in his 
Raven created a work of art so clean, so 
finished, he could risk such a step. The 
petty, the ridiculous and absurd, which other- 
wise draw the sublime into the dust, can do 
nothing against this perfection. 

My glance falls on the wall coverings of 
this hall. In the style of Mudejar, the 
Arabesque and Coptic sentences become en- 
twined. 

The eye is never surfeited with these fan- 
tastic harmonies. Now this marvel of 
Arabic art is composed of plaster — just com- 
mon plaster, — how laughable, how paltry, 
how absurd ! But though composed of mis- 
erable plaster this colossal work of art loses 
nothing of its sublimity. The ordinary me- 
dium exhales the breath of the spirit that in- 

24 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

spired it. Art triumphs over nature, and 
this art is so great that the recognition of 
the common medium is superfluous. 

Poe did not need this time-honored coat 
of lies. He saw that it was threadbare and 
torn and boldly threw it aside. In the few 
words with which he characterizes the un- 
derstanding of intuition in "Eureka" as 
"the conviction arising from those induc- 
tions or deductions of which the processes 
are so shadowy as to escape our conscious- 
ness, elude our reason, or defy our capacity 
of expression" — there was a clearer recogni- 
tion of the ways of artistic creation than 
any of his contemporaries had. While the 
Poet-philosopher therefore in opposition to 
the so-called "Intuition" of philosophy — es- 
pecially in reference to Aristotle, and Bacon, 
with whom he disputes makes allowance for 
this, which the latter denies; he at the same 
time determines its value in a limited un- 
tjieological modern sense. This shows the 
gigantic spirit of this foremost being en- 
dowed with a modern mind, that he, the ro- 
manticist, the dreamer, still is a worshipper 

25 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

of logic, who never lost the ground beneath 
his feet. 

Edgar Allan Poe was the first one openly 
to acknowledge the technique of thought — 
and anticipated Zola's "genius is applica- 
tion" by decades. And this same Edgar 
Allan Poe wrote in his preface to Eureka — 
"To the few who love me and whom I love 
— to those who feel rather than to those who 
think — to the dreamers and those who put 
faith in dreams as in the only realities, — I 
offer this book of Truths, not in its charac- 
ter of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that 
abounds in its Truth, constituting it true. 
To these I present the composition as an 
Art-Product alone, — let us say a Romance ; 
or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as 
a Poem. 

"What I here propound is true: — there- 
fore it cannot die ; or if by any means it be 
now trodden down, so that it die, it will rise 
again to the c Life Everlasting.' " 

So Poe, absolutely independent of Gau- 
tier, sets up his Art for Art's Sake princi- 
ple, — greater than Gautier who only saw 

26 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

beauty with the eyes of the painter, he places 
his demand. And he is also deeper than 
Gautier, to whom the outward form alone 
was a manifestation of beauty. Beauty 
first creates truth for him into truth — whose 
right to existence without beauty he denies. 
— This is the greatest demand ever made of 
Art, and as this demand can be fulfilled only 
in desires, dreams to him are the only real- 
ity, and he denies all real value to active 
life. Here, too, Poe the Romanticist, is a 
pathfinder — and is the first one to disclose 
what is called "Modern Thought." 

If he anticipated Zola's coined expression 
of technical production, if he furthermore 
set up the Parnassian art principle independ- 
ent of this, he bridged the gap of half a cen- 
tury and made a demand so ultra-modern 
that, even today, only a small part of the 
advanced spirits understand it in its whole 
radical magnitude. 

The fertility of the literature of the cul- 
tured peoples will through Poe's spirit first 
attain full development in this century. The 
past one judged him by a few outward 

27 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

trivialities, a hawing and hemming, which 
certainly brought a fortune to Jules Verne 
and Conan Doyle, the fortunate imitators. 
It is certain that the starving poet only wrote 
these things for his daily bread. The Sea 
and Moon Journeys of Gordon Pym and 
Hans Pfaal, etc., also several of his detec- 
tive stories as, for instance "The Murder in 
The Rue Morgue" "The Purloined Letter" 
"The Gold Bug," were certainly called 
into existence only by the desire to have 
warmth, food and drink. For Poe knew 
hunger. Therefore he wrote those things, 
as he also did translations, and worked at all 
possible sorts of scientific books. Surely, 
each single story, even the weakest, far sur- 
passes any adventure of the eminent Sher- 
lock Holmes. — Why does the great public, 
and especially the English speaking public, 
in spite of all this, swallow Doyle's ridicu- 
lous detective stories with enthusiasm, and 
lay those of Poe aside? 

Nothing is easier to understand. Poe's 
characters are like those of Dostoevski's, so 
real, his composition is so faultless, so holds 

28 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

the imagination of the reader without possi- 
bility of escape in its nets, that even the 
bravest cannot resist a shudder, an agoniz- 
ing, murderous shudder, which resembles a 
cruel nightmare. 

In the works of popular imitators this 
fear is nothing more than a pleasant sensa- 
tion, which not for one moment permits the 
reader to doubt the outcome of the farce. 
The reader always knows that this is all 
stupid nonsense; in this case he is standing 
above the narrator. This is the author's in- 
tention. Poe, however, grasps the reader, 
hurls him down the precipice and flings him 
into hell, so that the poor simpleton loses 
all sense of hearing and seeing, and is com- 
pletely at sea. Therefore the good citizen 
who wants to sleep quietly, prefers the stage 
hero of Baker Street, and draws the line at 
Poe's gigantic nightmares. One sees that 
even when he desired to be middle class, 
where he desired to write for the great 
masses, his aim is still too high. He ad- 
dressed middle class intellect and imagined 
himself to be speaking to his equals: To 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

carry his brain to market he ran about from 
publisher to publisher — to those who wanted 
to buy straw. 

* * * 

But a future time will be ripe for the 
Poet's gifts. We already recognize the path 
which leads from Jean Paul and E. T. A. 
Hoffmann to Baudelaire and Edgar Allan 
Poe, the only path which art, the outcome of 
culture, can take ! Already we have several 
efforts in this direction. 

This art will no longer be confined within 
national bounds. It will be conscious of it- 
self as was Edgar Allan Poe conscious that 
it does not exist for "its own people" but 
alone for the thin ranks of cultured taste, be 
these of Germanic or Japanese, of Latin or 
Jewish nationality. 

No artist ever worked for "his people," 
alone, and yet almost every artist desired to 
do so and believed he had accomplished this. 
The great masses in Spain know absolutely 
as little of Velasquez and Cervantes as the 
English working man does of Shakespeare 
and Byron, as the French do of Rabelais and 

30 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Moliere, as the Hollander does of Rem- 
brandt and Rubens. The German masses 
have not the slightest notion of Goethe and 
Schiller. They do not even know the names 
of Heine and Burger. The series of ques- 
tions or the answers made by the soldiers 
to the questions put to the soldiers of cer- 
tain regiments: "Who was Bismarck? 
Who was Goethe?" should at length open 
the eyes of the most optimistic. A whole 
world divides the cultured man of Germany 
from his countrymen, whom he meets daily 
in the street ; a nothing — a canal — separates 
him from the cultured element in America. 
Heine felt this and preached this openly 
to the people of Frankfort. Edgar Allan 
Poe expressed it even more distinctly. 
Most artists, however, and the learned and 
cultivated of all nations had such a slight 
understanding of this, that unto this day 
Horace's fine "Odi Profanum" is misinter- 
preted. The artist who wishes to create for 
his own people alone attempts the impos- 
sible, and for this purpose he very often 
neglects something attainable and greater, 

31 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

the possibility of creating for the whole 
world. Above the German, above the Brit- 
ish and French, there stands a higher na- 
tion. The nation of culture I To create 
for that is alone worthy of the artist. Here 
on this soil Poe was at home even as Goethe 
though in a different, equally conscious, but 
less modern sense. 

# # # 
Very slowly I pace about in the park of 
the Alhambra under the old elms which 
Wellington planted. On all sides fountains 
murmur, mingling their voices with the 
sweet songs of hundreds of nightingales. 
Among the turreted towers I walk in the 
luxuriant vale of the Alhambra. To whom 
does this magic palace, this garden of dreams 
belong? To the Spanish nation of beggars 
which I despise? To the mob of strangers 
with their guide-books in their hands, whose 
path I avoid by ten paces at least? O, no! 
This palace, this garden of dreams belongs 
to me, and to the few who are qualified to 
absorb these beauties, whose breath brings 
life to these rocks, to these shrubs. Whose 

32 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

spirit can transform all this beauty into 
truth? Everything about me, and all else 
which is beautiful on this earth, is the sacred 
inviolable property of the cultured people, 
who stand above all other nations. That 
Nation is the true ruler, the true possessor. 
No other master is tolerated by beauty. To 
understand this means to understand the 
world. Edgar Allan Poe was the first to 
do this. 

I sit on the stone bench on which 
Aboul Haddjadj once dreamed. A foun- 
tain bubbles up before me — and falls into the 
round marble basin. I know quite well why 
the Sultan sat here alone in the twilight: 
Oh, it is so very sweet to dream here ! 

There was once a Poet who recorded 
nothing but conversations with the dead. 
He chatted with all the seven sages, and 
with all the kings of Nineveh, and with 
Egyptian priests and Thessalian witches, 
with Athenian singers, with Roman gen- 
erals and with King Arthur's Round Table. 
At last he had no desire left to speak with 
any living being. The dead are so much 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

more interesting. Oh, one can speak with 
them, certainly. All dreamers can do so 
and all those who believe in dreams, as in the 
only reality. 

Did I not wander today with him I love, 
through the halls of the Palace ? Did I not 
reveal to the dead Poet part of the beauty 
of the world, never seen by mortal eye? 
Now he stands here beside me, leaning 
against the elm. "Only ask me," he says. 

He seems to feel how my eyes caress and 
question him — and he speaks. At times the 
words drop clearly from his lips; at times 
his voice ripples from the fountain; it sings 
from out of the throats of the nightingales 
and rustles in the leaves of the old elms. So 
wise are the dead. 

"Do not touch upon my poor life," says 
Edgar Allan Poe. "Question Goethe who 
was a prince and could afford six stallions 
with which to tear through the world. I 
was alone." 

I do not remove my eyes from him. 

"Tell those who love you and whom you 
love." 

34 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

"The life I lived, I have forgotten," he 
said. "O, not only since my death, as the 
small mortals think — each day I forgot to 
remember the morrow. Otherwise how 
could I have continued to live? — My real 
life though, my life of dreams, you know." 
. . . From the ground a light mist glides 
through the evening, a sweet cool breeze fans 
my brow. Certainly : the life of his dreams 
was very well known to me, he gave it to me 
as well as to the world. And slowly this 
pageant of his creations which represents 
his life glides past me. 

* * # 

William Wilson. Of course it is Poe. So 
truly Poe that the dominie Griswold calmly 
gives the year of Wilson's birth — 1813 — 
as that of the Poet's. The boy rules in the 
old boarding school of Stoke-Newington 
over all his fellow students; only not over 
one — the other Wilson, himself. And he 
whose inherited frivolous tastes again and 
again turned the boy, the youth and the man 
into a vagabond, cannot rid himself of his 
conscience, of that other Wilson — himself. 

35 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

In spite of his conscience his tendency to 
crime tosses him about the world, and over 
and over again he convicts himself.* Thus 
the poet's boyhood and his youth were 
poisoned. His inherited sense of good and 
evil which had been more strongly developed 
by his education is so overstrong in him 
that he cannot disentangle himself from his 
conflicting emotions, and is almost wrecked 
by them. Each little wrong he has com- 
mitted takes on colossal proportions in his 
dreams and plagues and torments him. 
Still more, sins of conscience, entertaining 
the idea of evil alone, become a reality in his 
dreams. He sees himself as the hero of all 
his terrible tales. The sins of the fathers 
are avenged upon the last scion of the race; 
like Frederick of Metzengerstein in his own 
story, he himself rides through all the flames 
of hell, on his devilish steed. 
# # # 

. . . How the elm trees murmur. And I 

* His biographer, the Rev. Mr. Griswold, nevertheless re- 
marks, that in all literature there is no other instance in 
which one so utterly misses every vestige of conscience, as 
in the case of Poe. 

36 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

hear the voice of the accursed from out of 
the winds: 

"Had I not been a poet, I probably should 
have become a murderer, a cheat, a thief, a 
robber and a trickster." 

The leaves of the elms sing and again a 
voice whispers: 

"And perhaps I would have been hap- 
pier." 



And I think, — who can tell? — Has there 
ever been a criminal whose deeds created a 
martyrdom for him such as the Poet felt for 
crimes which he had never committed? For 
Poe in his dreams, which were his only ac- 
tual life, is not only the murderer, but also 
the victim. He immures his enemy while 
still alive in a cellar. And it is he himself 
who is walled in. ("The Cask of Amontil- 
lado.") He murders, because he must, the 
man with the eagle eye, — he buries him under 
the planks, and the heart which is beating 
below this, and which at last discloses the 
deed, is again his own. ("The Tell-Tale 

37 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Heart.") We find the double of William 
Wilson everywhere. 

Rarely has an artist stood so little out- 
side of that which he created, never did one 
so live within his works. A German, a 
Frenchman would have more easily emanci- 
pated himself from this fatal idea of moral- 
ity. The Poet, however, by inheritance 
and education suffered from a piety which 
enslaved his soul, and from which he could 
never entirely free himself. Only later in 
life could he assume an objective attitude; 
he never stood entirely outside of all good 
and evil. The old English curse oppressed 
him, no torture was spared him; this poor 
soul had to endure all the maddest tortures 
of hell, the cup of which Brueghel, Jean van 
Bosch and Goya emptied unto the last 
dregs. 

Had he been a criminal in reality instead 
of in thought, had he ended his days on the 
gallows instead of in the charity hospital, 
his life would have been poverty-stricken 
and miserable — but not as terrible as it was. 

But temples arise from fields strewn with 

38 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

skulls, fields of lilies blossomed from blood- 
stained meadows. And we blessed ones en- 
joy the wonderful flowers which grew out of 
the Poet's poisoned imagination, — the price 
of his soul. 

# # * 

The brooklets ripple through the park of 
the Alhambra. Merry little brooklets that 
murmur and gurgle ! In their narrow peb- 
bled beds they hurriedly flow past, as quickly 
as the happy hours in the poet's life glided by 
him; — those hours, or minutes, perhaps, in 
which he could be innocently happy. 

Then he would dream a merry dream, — 
perhaps of the man with the wonderful big 
nose which charmed the whole world, which 
artists painted and princesses kissed. In 
this delightful little story, which in its bizarre 
style is a forerunner of Mark Twain's (only 
that with Poe the grotesque exaggerations 
appear much finer, much more natural) 
there is no ostentation of wordplay. 

He laughs at the poor man's meals which 
the weekly papers dish up to their good 
natured readers, he teaches Miss Zenobia 

39 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

how to write a clever article for Blackwood's 
Magazine, permits the most worthy Mr. 
ThingTim Bob of the "Lantern" to gossip 
entertainingly about his literary adventures. 
So light, so amiable, and so ingratiating is 
the Poet's wit, — like the little springs which 
merrily gurgle through the park of the Al- 

hambra ! 

# # # 

But like the nightingale, he sobs forth his 
dreams of longing. And his voice seems 
formed from out of the nightingale's soul, 
so pure, so spotless. Saint Cecilia would 
fain break her violin with envy, and Apollo 
shatter his lyre. If the Poet found no hell 
too deep for his dream of crime, no heaven 
was too high for his songs of beauty. 

In none of Poe's works do we find one 
sentence, one little allusion based upon 
sexual love. To no other poet was eroti- 
cism as foreign as to Poe, except possibly 
Scheerbart. 

Just as little can we find one strain of 
social sentiment in his works. And yet 
there is a heart in his breast, which longs for 

40 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

love, to which love's communications are an 
absolute necessity. It is only that he can- 
not love man, because he sees the little faults 
which repel him on all sides, which cause 
him to refuse the hand held out for love's 
caresses, and to silence the flattering word 
on his lips. Then he turns his longing to 
do good towards animals — pats the dog, 
feeds the hungry cat, and is thankful for a 
faithful look, for a satisfied purring. How 
conscious the Poet was of all this is seen in 
his tale, "The Black Cat," in which he em- 
phasizes his love of animals, and says that 
he "derived from it one of my principal 
sources of pleasure." If it was one of the 
"principal sources of pleasure" in a poor 
life, it was certainly one of the few, that did 
not mingle pleasure with pain, — for the pure 
love for his dying wife but caused him joys 
mingled only with frightful tortures. 

The Edgar Allan Poe that is Roderick 
Usher had, like the angel Israfil of the 
Koran, a lute in place of his heart. When 
he looked at his beloved wife, his heart 
sobbed, and his lute sang : it sang pure songs 

41 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 



of longing', whose tones sound in one's ears 
with sweetest thrills — it sang pure tales of 
Morella and Berenice — of Lenore and 
Ligeia. The same inner music w r hich throbs 
through the Raven, and Ulalume, and which 
is perhaps the highest in Art, echoes through 
these poems in prose; and the words w r ith 
which the Poet accompanied his "Song of 
the Universe" is meant also for these tones: 
"They cannot die; or if by any means they 
be now trodden down so that they die, they 
will rise again to the Life Everlasting." 

Yes, they have eternal worth; they will 
live through the short space of life which we 
mortals call everlasting; which, however, is 
the highest to which even a human being can 
attain, even in all times to come. 

Poe's value as a poet has not at any time 
been greater than in our OAvn, for in our 
time, particularly in our period, he can teach 
us much. Poe is no longer a problem; he 
has become a personality, which lies clearly 
before all those who have the power to see. 
The consciousness of his art brought forth 
by intoxication, the emphasizing of the 

42 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

meaning of technique, the clear recognition 
of the Parnassian principles of art in their 
broadest meaning, the powerful demonstra- 
tion of the high value of the inner rhythm of 
all poetry ; all these are moments, which have 
individually been accentuated by many 
others, though in their entirety, and in their 
penetrating relation, they have been rec- 
ognized by no artist as by this New Eng- 
land poet — and as these moments represent 
that which can be called the furthering of the 
modern spirits in the art of culture in their 
entirety, the study of the works of Poe is 
more gratifying to the artist and to the ed- 
ucated layman than any other. That it is 
impossible to promote these studies by means 
of translations is obvious. One can grow 
to know and admire the artist through trans- 
lations, but to penetrate into his innermost 
being, it is necessary to read him in the origi- 
nal form. This may be said of all poets, 
but of none more than of Poe. 

* * # 
The nightingales still sing, and from out 

43 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

of their little throats bursts forth the voice 
of the Poet I love. The soft winds fold 
their wings — the leaves of the elms cease 
their rustling. Even the drizzling little 
rivulets stop their whisperings. The park 
of the Alhambra listens to the songs of the 
nightingales. 

Through hundreds of years at eventide 
these sweet sounds have sung these old tow- 
ers and walls to sleep, and today, too, they 
are still the same confiding notes, but dif- 
ferent — very different. A dead Poet's lute- 
like heart is beating, and his soul's songs 
are sung by the little birds. So the brook 
and the trees listen, the red quarry stones 
are harkening — the purple glowing peaks of 
the snow capped mountains are listening 
too : an endless sigh floats through the great 
garden from out of the west. It is the glow 
of the setting sun, which is sadly taking 
leave of a Poet's sublime song. 

The twilight breathes through the elm 
trees and filmy shadows of fog rise from the 
laurel bushes; they rise from out of the 

Moorish palace of spirits. In a long train 

•.,■,•■••, .ii ' . . . • . . • . =^ 

44 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

they file past us, and seat themselves about 
on the marble benches. I know very well 
who they are — they are poets of Granada, 
— Jews and Arabs. Very close to me sits 
Gabirol, then Ibnu-1-Khattib — and Ibn 
Esra and Jehuda ben Halevy and Mo- 
hammed Ibn Khaldun, and Ibn Batuta. 
Hundreds of dead Poets are silently listen- 
ing to the song of the nightingales. They 
all know what the grey little birds are sing- 
ing today, — so do the dead understand. 
They hear the heart of the angel Israfil, of 
whom the Koran speaks, and praise God, 
who has awakened all these tones. Ouald 
ghdliba ill' Allahta 'aid — murmur the misty 
shadows of the Alhambra. 

And the nightingales sing of dark secrets, 
of the pure sources of life, and a great long- 
ing fills my soul. They sing of that secret 
thought which created all and penetrates 
all, of the world creating breath, which fills 
the whole universe with unending love. 
They sing of the beauty which only turns 
all truth into reality, of the dreams which 
only make life real. 

45 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Poe's soul is singing — and a hundred dead 
poets listen to the refrain. And from their 
lips fall again the ancient words — Ouala 
gfaaliba ill' Allahta 'ala — so grateful are the 

dead. 

* * # 

And night descends more deeply upon us. 
The nightingales are silent and the east wind 
rises over the Sierras ; then the filmy shadows 
disappear; again I am alone in the magic 
garden of the Alhambra. — Alone with the 
soul of a great artist, and as the wind drives 
through the leaves the old elms rustle and 
sing of "Ulalume" strange ballad of the 
Poet's awful dream. 

The skies they were ashen and sober; 

The leaves they were crisped and sere — 

The leaves they were withering and sere — 
It was night in the lonesome October 

Of my most immemorial year; 
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, 

In the misty mid region of Weir — 
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber 

In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 
Here once, through an alley Titanic 
Of cypress I roamed with my soul — . . . 

I know full well that it is I who speak 
46 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

these lines, but I feel that my lips say noth- 
ing else than that which the elm trees whis- 
per there. I feel — I feel — that it is the sad 
October song of the howling winds which a 
poet's heavenly longing has absorbed and 
crystallized into words. It is the absorption 
of the innermost sense of nature ; it is a sur- 
render of the soul to the universe, and at 
the same time a penetration into the uni- 
verse, which is the primitive form of all ex- 
istence. That is a slight proof of the poet's 
highest law of "unity as the origin of all 
things." 

My lips repeat the secret words — which 
the wind carries to my ears. Fear over- 
comes me in this gloomy solitude, in which 
ages dim as fairy land are born again. I 
want to escape from the valley of the Al- 
hambra. My foot errs, gropes in the dark, 
and loses its way, and as I reach the end of 
a lane of mighty cypress trees, I strike 
against a low gate. Fright teaches us to 
see in the dark. — I know, I know whose 
grave this is. And against my will, my lips 
repeat to my soul — 

47 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

"What is written, sweet sister, 

On the door of this legended tomb?" 
She replied — "Ulalume — Ulalume — 
Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume !" 

My terror grows. The soul of the dead 
Poet — which fluttered in the trees, which 
sounded in the song of the nightingale, which 
gurgled out of the little brooklets and which 
filled the wind's sad song, — it takes posses- 
sion of me — of me; of an atom of the dust 
with which it is saturated. I know that this 
thought will annihilate me, — that I cannot 
escape from it, but I do not guard myself 
against it — and, strange, I grow quiet — so 
quiet that I am completely filled with it. 
Slowly the small fears of mortals disperse. 
* * * 

Now I find my way again. I go through 
the Gates of the Vines to the Square of the 
Algibes. I go into the Alcazaba, mount 
the Ghafar, the mighty watch tower of the 
Moorish princes. A brilliant crescent of 
the moon glows between two hurrying 
clouds; — The old sign of Arabic greatness, 
which no God or Christ can wipe from 

48 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Heaven. I glance down into Granada, 
rich in churches, with its noisy swarming 
night life — its people running to coffee 
houses; reading newspapers, shining shoes, 
and having shoes shined. They look into 
well-lighted show windows, ride in tram- 
cars — their water carriers crying out and 
gathering cigar butts. They cry and hoot, 
quarrel and make peace again — and no liv- 
ing soul raises an eye — nobody glances up- 
ward to the glory here. The Darro roars 
to the right of me. In the back I hear the 
rushing of the Xenil. Bright rays of flame 
emerge from the Caves of the Gypsy Moun- 
tain, and to the other side, the snow-capped 
Sierras gleam silvery in the moonlight. Be- 
tween the watch towers on which I stand 
and the purple towers of the Moorish Moun- 
tain, the sombre park lies deep in the valley. 
Farther back, with its halls upon halls, court- 
yards upon courtyards, lies the enchanted 
Palace of the Alhambra. 

Down there the small life of this century 
noisily goes its way — up here is the land of 
dreams — and that down there — how distant, 

49 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

how infinitely distant it is from me — and 
the land up here — is not each stone a part of 
my soul? Am I alone in this world of 
spirits, that does not sense that blind life 
below ? Am I not a part of all these dreams ? 
Almighty Beauty turns these dreams into 
verities. Here life blossoms and the truth 
below becomes a shadow play. 

Deed is nothing — thought is all. Reality 
is ugly — and to the ugly is denied all right of 
existence. Dreams are beautiful, and are 
true because they are beautiful, and there- 
fore I believe in dreams as in the only real- 
ity. 

# # # 

How did Edgar Allan Poe look? 

There are men who radiate a special 
charm. They attract without wanting to, 
— one must believe in their personality, and 
then there is a certain quality which repels. 
One is not conscious what it consists of, but 
it is there. They are branded with the brand 
of Art. So was Oscar Wilde, — so was Ed- 
gar Allan Poe. 

His figure was tall, his step light, and his 

50 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

bearing always harmonious, — always noble 
in spite of his poverty. His proud features 
were regular; they were beautiful; the clear 
dark grey eyes had an odd violet sheen. The 
self-conscious forehead was high, and of won- 
derful proportion — his complexion was pale, 
and the locks that framed it were black. 
Edgar Allan Poe was beautiful in body and 
mind. His gentle voice sounded like music. 

He was very supple and strong — skillful 
in all athletic sports, an indefatigable swim- 
mer, who at one time swam from Richmond 
to Warwick, more than seven miles, with- 
out tiring, against the rapid tide; a trained 
athlete — a very fine rider, and an experi- 
enced fencer who often challenged an op- 
ponent in a fit of anger. 

He was a gentleman from top to toe — 
his manner in company was fascinatingly 
amiable, yet, with all reserved. He was 
tender and gentle, yet earnest and firm. 
He was a scholar who possessed an almost 
universal education. To see him was as 
great a pleasure as to listen to him. He was 
always the donor, and it was his curse that 

51 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

.so few of all those on whom he lavished his 
rich gifts understood or appreciated them. 
A few beautiful women — understood him? 
— Xo, but they sensed his nobility of soul in- 
stinctively, as women always do. Three 
persons who lived in his time had the ability 
to comprehend him completely,— Baude- 
laire and the two Brownings — but they 
lived over there in Europe and he never met 
them. 

So the Poet was alone in his solitary, lofty 
dreams. 

And as he was beautiful, and above all, 
loved beauty, so everything that surrounded 
him had to be beautiful. He created magni- 
ficent beauties in dreams, which, to him, 
were real. In them he lived in Landor's 
costly country house or on the splendid estate 
at Arnheim, but also in his modest, every 
day life, in which he had to count the pen- 
nies, he knew how to create an atmosphere 
about him which called forth the admiration 
of the richest people. 

His little cottage at Fordham, in which 
he lived at the side of the doomed wife, 

52 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

though a Paradise of Torture, was per- 
meated by a wonderful harmony, which 
charmed all visitors. Dilapidated furniture 
stood about, yet even thus it seemed pleasing 
and beautiful. It was a miserable hut on 
the peak of a little hill, but blooming cherry 
trees stood on the green meadows; early in 
the morning little song-birds enticed the 
Poet to the nearby pine woods. Then he 
paced among his gay dahlia bushes and in- 
haled the sweet perfume of the mignonette 
and heliotrope. The gentle morning breeze 
kissed his damp brow, caressed his tired eyes, 
which had kept watch at the couch of his 
slowly dying beloved, during the long night. 
He went to the high bridge over the Harlem 
River, or to the rocky cliffs shaded by old 
cedars, and dreamed there, gazing out on the 
landscape. 

Now he rests — somewhere. The day 
after his death they buried him in the West- 
minster Churchyard in Baltimore. Like a 
criminal vagrant they picked him from the 
street and buried him the next day. His 
grave is supposed to be close to that of his 

53 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 



grandfather's — General David Poe, who 
made a name for himself in the War of In- 
dependence. Thereabouts he is supposed to 
lie. One does not know the spot, exactly — 
no cross, no gravestone arises on the place 
— no human being bothers about it. His 
countrymen have other cares; what interest 
have they in a dead Poet? — For about a 
week they talked of the unfortunate de- 
parted — to besmirch — to calumniate his 
memory. All of the lies which are still cir- 
culated about him originated at this time. 
A whole flood of poisoned ink was poured 
over the dead lion. All the mediocrities fell 
on him, the envious little scribblers whom he 
had mercilessly torn to pieces, concurred in 
the war cry of the lying clergyman Gris- 
wold. — "He died in a fit of drunkenness! 
— He drank, he drank, he drank." — Then 
they forgot him, and it was better so; his 
countrymen had not matured enough to ap- 
preciate their great Poet. 

Are they able to recognize him today? 
After a hundred years they will gather the 
rotting bones ; they will erect a mighty monu- 

54 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

merit and write thereon — "The United 
States to its great Poet" — 

Let them keep the bones in America. 
We (in Europe) will listen to the Poet's 
soul, which lives in the nightingales' throats 
in the Alhambra. 

* * * 



THE END 



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